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NASA established the origin of the mysterious space object that orbits the moon (photo)

Anastasia Kryshchuk

NASA established the origin of the mysterious space object that orbits the moon (photo)
Pictures of an unusual object that moved quickly across the lunar sky. Source: LRO / NASA

Recently, NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured images of a high-speed object flying through the lunar space. At first there were speculations about UFOs, but they turned out to be wrong.

It later became clear that the LRO image reflected the Korean lunar probe KPLO (Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter), also called Danuri. Channel 24 writes about it.

What is known about this probe

The KPLO mission, developed by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, successfully uses an orbit nearly parallel to that of NASA's LRO. This coincidence of orbits led to a unique situation where the two vehicles converged in space, which required a high level of coordination between the teams.

Read also: Scientists discovered that stars can absorb entire planets, and this happens quite often

Launched in August 2022, Danuri pioneered the lunar program in South Korea. Since December of the same year, it has been performing orbital revolutions around the Moon, contributing to the preparation for the next expeditions and testing the capabilities of the "lunar Internet" for communication between the lunar modules and the Earth.

NASA established the origin of the mysterious space object that orbits the moon (photo)
Danuri on the background of the moon. Source: NASA LRO

In order to capture the Danuri image, engineers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center had to precisely align the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LRO) to capture the image at a precisely defined moment. The short exposure, lasting 0.338 milliseconds, produced a blurry image of Danuri, due to the high relative speed between the two vehicles, NASA said.

Despite this chance encounter, LRO is famous for its successful research, which includes the recovery of debris from crashed lunar landing modules and contributions to laser experiments that help improve navigation systems for future lunar expeditions.

We will remind you that earlier we wrote that they want to build a railway on the Moon that will connect different bases.

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